It is estimated that approximately 28 million people, including 1.46 million children, have a hearing deficiency. Early identification of hearing loss and appropriate intervention can be critical to preventing or ameliorating further hearing loss or language delay or disorder. Indeed, early identification can be particularly important in children who are, typically, more receptive to rehabilitation.
Conventional hearing evaluation or assessment tests are performed in a clinical setting with personal interaction between the patient and a clinician. In these settings, the patient is often required to sit in a sound isolation booth and to visually signal to the clinician when sounds generated from an audiometer become audible. Unfortunately, this clinic or office setting structure can be burdensome and time consuming, particularly for those individuals located in remote or rural regions where health care options may be limited or in industrial settings where frequent or periodical screenings may be beneficial.
One presently operating website attempts to reach a broader audience by providing a hearing screening procedure over the Internet. The screening is available at the Universal Resource Locator (URL) “www.handtronix.com.” This website provides a rough hearing screening which purports to indicate, as a result of the procedure, whether the user should obtain a diagnostic hearing test (apparently based on whether the user fails to discern one or more of the three or four tones provided during the test at particular volumes). For example, a sound at a frequency of about 1000 Hz may be generated from a personal computer, which is output to the user by the speakers at a certain volume. The sound frequency may then change to one of three other selected frequencies (such as 500 Hz, 2000 Hz, and 4000 Hz). The user can adjust the speaker volume until they can audibly detect the sound at that frequency. The results of such a screening are an indication of whether the user should seek a full hearing diagnostic evaluation. Unfortunately, this screening is not a diagnostic hearing test and does not meet ANSI guidelines.
In addition, recently, telemedicine has become a viable option for certain medical procedures. PCT/US98/13681 proposes an automated process for test tracking analysis and reporting of various diseases and tests. This document briefly notes that the automated system may be useful for administering non-invasive tests such as hearing tests in the home without the physical presence of a physician or audiologist. For these tests, this reference proposes a test kit which can be obtained from a retailer or organization which can include an electronic auditory (hearing) test which can be transmitted by an auditory transmitter such as telephone, modem, cable, computer network, television, radio, etc. As described, the patient inputs test answers into an inputting device, which can be similar to the auditory transmitter, which then directs the data into a data processing system which analyzes the data. The analysis can then generate an electronic diagnosis and forward the recommendation or diagnosis to the patient or to a physician or audiologist. Unfortunately, this proposed system automatically performs the test and does not employ an audiologist, clinician, or physician, during administration of the test. Further, this system does not describe the test itself, nor how to generate a reliable remotely administered test, which meets standardized ANSI based diagnostic hearing test requirements.